While You Were Missing
by Jasmineisland
Summary: One Shot This is a coda to Citizen Fang, so if you haven't seen it and don't want spoilers, don't read. I hated how things ended between the boys.


I was SO unhappy with the way things ended between the boys in Citizen Fang. This just kept beating at my head until I wrote it.

Caution: If suicide is a trigger for you, DON'T READ.

After Citizen Fang last night I was so unhappy with both boys. This came to me and it just wouldn't go away until I wrote it.  
This is what I imagine will happen when Sam tries to shut the door on Dean from the previews.

When Sam tried to shut the door, Dean stuck his foot in it. "Come on, Sammy."  
Shrugging, the younger man stepped back. It wasn't lost on Dean that he actually swayed a bit. When he entered the room, he could see why. The room was littered with empty bottles, even some shattered at the base of a few walls.  
"Sorry I missed the party."  
"S'not a party. It's a wake." Tripping over the coffee table, Sam reached for one of the bottles that didn't fall and drank the last few drops.  
Dean knew dealing with Sam at this moment wasn't going to be easy. Not that he'd shown up looking for easy. His brother was flat pissed at him. Staring at the man trying to drain yet another empty bottle, Dean hoped he'd just pass out. Dealing with hungover/pissed off Sam would be much easier then dealing with drunk/pissed off Sam.  
"Okay, since you've put away 99% of the liquor in the county, let's work on getting you to bed."  
"Fuck you." Sam reached for a bottle that was beside the sofa with some whiskey left in it. "Better yet, go fuck Benny. He's ya BFF brother now, right?" In a move that actually surprised Dean, the younger man finished almost a quarter of a bottle in one long shot. "Just go. Lemme die in peace."  
"You're not gonna die, Sam. Gonna wish you had tomorrow, but you're going to live to fight with me another day."  
"Nope. Done. No fight no more."  
English was becoming an issue now. Shouldn't be long before Sam was snoring. "I'll just sit here and wait for the hangover."  
"Suit y'self." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled something out and looked at it. "Fuck. Got s'more. Where fuck they go…" Sam couldn't see a thing, but he got to his feet. And promptly fell into the coffee table.  
A loud crash echoed in the room when the table, along with about six bottles, caved in under the weight of the large man.  
"Shit." Dean grabbed his brother by the back of his jacket and tried to lift him. He could already see the blood from the broken bottles being pressed into his brother's skin. "Come on, I think you've done enough damage for one night. Get back on the couch."  
"Fine here." Pulling away from the offending hands, Sam stretched out on the floor. "S'good a place to die."  
Something in the back of Dean's mind began to send a warning. Not really sure what was off, he looked around on the sofa. Then he saw it. A small bottle, the object Sam had pulled out of his pocket. Picking it up, Dean looked at it. It was Thorazine.  
Everything clicked in his mind. Sam's voice echoed in his mind.  
"S'not a party. It's a wake."  
"Lemme die in peace."  
"Nope. Done. No fight no more."  
"S'good a place to die."  
Dean's heart actually skipped a beat. He hadn't interrupted his brother on a serious bender. He'd walked right in on his brother's suicide. Grabbing his phone, he frantically dialed 911 while he reached for Sam's phone and dialed Cas with the other. With Cas's voicemail in one ear and a 911 operator in the other, Dean spoke.  
"My brother, he….. oh shit, he… drank, I have no idea how much, but he took a bottle of Thorazine, too."  
The operator began to ask questions which Dean answered in half sentences. He gave the address loudly, so Cas's voicemail would pick it up. After hanging up, Dean kneeled down beside the unconscious man.  
"Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. What the fuck, Sammy? Were you really planning to check out on me like this?" Tears came to Dean's eyes and he reached for his brother's hand. He'd been waiting for his brother to die. He hadn't known it, but if Sam hadn't tried to take more Thorazine Dean would have never known until it was too late. He would have sat here and watched his brother stop breathing and never known why. He knew that dig about Benny would come back to bite him in the ass when he said it, but he thought he'd get a fist in the face.  
By the time the EMT's arrived, Dean was numb. He watched silently as they loaded Sam into the ambulance. The paramedic had to ask him three times if he was going to follow to the hospital before he nodded.  
Which led him to where he was now. Sitting beside his brother's hospital bed. Again. Only this time it wasn't a hunt gone wrong. It wasn't some ugly son of a bitch that Dean could go kill for him. It wasn't even hallucinations of the fucking devil doing this to Sam. His brother put himself here. And if Dean was going to be honest, he was the one that pushed him to it. He'd been so lost, and angry at everything and, once again, Sam had taken the brunt of it.  
"I'm sorry. No one told me anyone else was here."  
A woman's voice startled Dean and he turned to see a woman standing in the doorway.  
She shrugged. "I heard he was here, and… I…"  
"You heard he was here?"  
"Jeff called me."  
"Whoever the hell Jeff is."  
"He's the manager at the motel." The woman moved slowly to Sam's bed and looked at him. "I shouldn't have let him go like that." Her eyes filled with tears and she gently reached out to touch his hand. "I knew he was upset. But he said he was okay. I….. I just never dreamed he'd do this again."  
"Again?!" Dean stared at the woman and waited. Before she could say another word, it came to him. "Amelia."  
Nodding, the woman turned back to Sam. "I'm glad someone is here with him, you know? He doesn't have any family."  
This was his chance to find out what Sam wouldn't tell him, so he just nodded. "Haven't seen Sam in a while, but we go way back."  
"You know his brother died."  
"I heard."  
"It was a few months before I met him. But he was so lost." She wiped her eyes. "His brother was all he had left. And without him….. I'd just lost my husband, and we just…. Fit, ya know?"  
"So what happened?"  
"A miracle. Well, for me. My husband was really alive."  
"So you kicked Sam to the curb." It was clicking in Dean's mind and he didn't like where this was going. There was a woman. And then there wasn't.  
"No! I didn't know what I wanted. Sam left. He said….. He said I deserved my happy ever after." Now she began to really cry. "I just let him leave. And when he showed up the other night, I just….. I should have known he wasn't alright. He had that look….. he was drinking again. I should have known when he showed up at the house it wasn't just to see how I was doing. He knew Don was there. Why would he do that to himself?"  
Because his brother, who should have been his miracle, shoved a knife in his heart and then shoved another one in his back by sending him here just to get him out of the way.  
The thought went through Dean's mind and he missed the next thing Amelia said. But she continued as if she hadn't noticed him zoning out on her. Until she said something that caught his attention.  
"I should have never talked him into filling that prescription."  
"Thorazine?" Dean moved closer to her. "Why the hell did he have a prescription or Thorazine?"  
"He couldn't sleep. He had these horrible nightmares. Screaming for Dean- that's his brother. I always thought it had something to do with however he died- Sam would never tell me. He couldn't talk about it. He barely even talked about Dean at all. Just that he'd raised Sam and done everything for him. Unless he was drunk. Then he would say things like Dean died for him a hundreds of times, whatever that meant. That Dean was the only reason he was still alive and he couldn't try to kill himself again because Dean wouldn't want him to. Even if living without him was worse then hell." More tears fell. "He always said that Dean was 'stone number one' and he'd built himself on that."  
You've gotta make it stone number one and build on it. Dean remembered saying those words to his brother, but it was just now hitting him how much Sam had truly depended on that. His throat tightened, but he forced himself to speak. "He really missed me- Dean."  
"You have no idea. I understood how he felt, sort of. My husband had been killed overseas in the military. Well, I had been told he had. I was angry and drifting, he was lonely and lost, and we just….. decided to put each other back together, I guess. He told me I saved him. He never understood he saved me, too." Her phone rang and she looked at it. "I have to go. I don't know if it will be a good thing or not to see him if he wakes up."  
"When he wakes up." Dean corrected her with a sharp tone. "I don't know. I get the feeling he loves you."  
"I love him."  
"But maybe seeing you with your back-from-the-dead husband is what pushed him over the edge." The older brother despeately wanted to blame the woman in front of him for hurting Sam. Even though he knew he was the one that sent him back to the fucking town in the first place.  
"Which is why I don't understand why he came back here."  
Blame right back on Dean. Score one for Amelia.  
"Do what you want. I'm going to get Sam the hell out of this town the second I can, and if I have anything to say about it he won't be back."  
Nodding, Amelia wiped her eyes. "Probably the best thing for him." With one last look at Sam, she left.  
Sighing, Dean sat back down on the chair. Sam would probably be pissed that Dean had been so nasty to her, but first he'd have to wake up. Then he could be as nasty as he wanted for every shitty thing Dean had said to him since he'd come back. No matter how vague Sam had been, Dean should have known that his brother wouldn't have just given up on him and walked away. If he was truly suicidal, and apparently he was, Dean should be breathing a sigh of relief that Sam did stop hunting. A suicidal hunter was nothing more then a walking corpse on borrowed time. Wracking his brain, he thought Bobby might have said that once. And he was right. If Sam had continued to hunt like that, he wouldn't have been anything more then an unclaimed body in some city graveyard for derelicts when Dean made it out of Purgatory. That thought brought tears to the hunter's eyes. For a few seconds he tried to fight it, but there was no one there to see how sorry he was for what he'd done and the tears fell.  
He had no idea how long he sat there, crying for everything he'd almost lost when a familiar sound proceeded a hand on his shoulder.  
"Dean. What happened?" The angel had finally listened to the twenty voicemails Dean had left him.  
"Me, hell, purgatory, me again. It's a pretty long fucking list, Cas. Fix him."  
Nodding, the angel placed his hand on Sam's forehead. Instantly the younger man took a deep breath and opened his eyes. For a moment his eyes stared around in a confused panic until they settled on Dean.  
"When did you get here?"  
"Just in time to keep you alive till Cas could get here."  
"Why?"  
The fact that they're relationship was so bad that Sam would actually ask why Dean would save his life hurt. A lot. "Because you owe me a beatdown for that cheap shot with Amelia."  
Sitting up, Sam shook his head. "No, you've been right all along. I gave up. I got a dog, and a woman, while you were fighting for your life."  
"I met her."  
"Why?"  
Dean sighed. "She was here. We had a long talk about you."  
"Guess you figured out I wasn't any better at being a boyfriend then I was at being a brother."  
When those hazel eyes dropped to the floor, Dean decided it was time to start making changes. "Stop. I was pissed, Sam. I wasn't much better fresh back from Purgatory then I was from hell. You told me that you had a life, a dog, a woman. You didn't fill in any blanks for me on what really happened. You never even hinted that you'd tried to kill yourself."  
"You were in Purgatory, Dean. Constantly running and fighting. You never gave up trying to get back. I was going to tell you that I couldn't handle one more night of sleeping alone in the Impala and decided to carve out my wrists in a bathroom of a bar?" He laughed, but there was no humor. "Didn't even want to go out to the car and get a gun. Just wanted it over with."  
"You could have told me, Sam." Reaching out, he gripped his brother's shoulder. "You SHOULD have told me, Sammy."  
The look on Sam's face was somewhere between despondent and hopeful. Time to end that. Reaching out, Dean pulled him into his arms and held him. Immediately long arms circled his back and squeezed so hard he almost couldn't pull in a breath.  
"We should get Sam out of here." Cas's voice startled both of them. They'd forgotten he was there.  
Reluctantly moving away from his brother, Sam nodded to him. "I guess you're how I'm here."  
"I am glad I was able to save you."  
"He's right. Docs find out you're awake and you're headed for psych evaluation."  
"I can't do that. Christ, last time they gave me so many drugs I was talking about fucking Lucifer and you-" He took a breath. "They thought they made me hallucinate. That was the ONLY reason I got out."  
The thought of his brother alone and confined in a psych ward of some county hospital just made Dean feel worse. "Let's get out of here before anyone realizes you're awake."  
They made their way out to the parking lot and got in the Impala.  
"I'll be too fucking happy to put this town in the rear view." Dean pulled the car out onto the street.  
Staring out the window, Sam was quiet. Cas had done exactly what Dean had asked him to do. Looking at him now, it was hard for Dean to believe that just hours ago he'd been in a coma, medically only one step away from brain dead. It was be easy to brush this under the rug, go with Winchester patented way of coping. But that was a path that would lead them right back here, and he knew it.  
Over the next two hours, Dean worked out different ways the conversation could go in his mind. When he finally thought he had the opening worked out in his head, he found a motel and stopped.  
"You tired already?"  
"Yeah, Sam, I am. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of not talking, I'm tired of feeling like there's this wall right down the center of the car."  
"I'm sorry."  
"I didn't say that for you to be sorry, Sam. Look, just….. let's get a room, okay?"  
"Okay."  
As soon as the door shut behind them, Dean sat on the bed. "However we got here, I don't want to end up here again."  
"I'm fine, De-"  
"You tried to kill yourself, Sam, that's NOT fine. Not even in the same fucking planet as fine."  
"I'm sorry."  
"And stop saying you're sorry, for Christ's sake. I'm not after an apology. How about I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been so pissed at you for something that I'm pretty fucking grateful you did now."  
"What does that mean?"  
"A suicidal hunter is a walking corpse on borrowed time. You and I know you wouldn't have been here when I got back if you hadn't quit hunting."  
That made Sam close his mouth and stare at the ground.  
"Yeah, had a long talk with Amelia. Didn't tell her who I was, just a friend. But she told me what you wouldn't."  
"I'm-"  
"The next word out of your mouth better not be sorry. I'm not looking for apologies, Sammy. I'm looking for how to fix this. I want to know what happened. The things you couldn't tell Amelia."  
"Nothing to tell, Dean. I had no idea where to start looking for you. I chased down a few demons, but….." Licking his lips, he finally looked up at his brother. "It wasn't good. Let's face it, Dean. I don't do well by myself. The last time I was alone I set Lucifer free, remember?"  
"You….." Dean stopped himself, but Sam knew exactly what he meant. Dean was asking him if he had resorted to drinking blood again.  
"No. But it was close. Too fucking close. I wondered if I could get you back on my own. But I couldn't figure out where to start. Had it out with a cross roads demon, went after the Alpha Vampire, and for the record? You were right. I wouldn't have been here if I hadn't gotten out. Part of it was that I was afraid of what I was going to do. Safer for the world if I just took myself out, you know? I was looking for a place to do it when Riot ran out in front of me." Shrugging, Sam stared at Dean. "Dog saved my life. If I hadn't hit him, I'd have never met Amelia."  
"Then I'm grateful to a stupid dog and Amelia." Dean sat next to him on the bed. "Sorry how it worked out, though."  
"She's happy. I'm happy for her."  
"And I had to shove that right in your face."  
"I had to send Martin after Benny." Sam sighed. "I'm sorry I got him killed."  
"He wouldn't back off. Went after the girl at the diner."  
"What? Jesus. He said he was okay."  
"So did you when you had Lucifer as a copilot."  
Sam flinched and looked away.  
"I mean that you thought you had a handle on it. I'm sure Martin did, too." The last thing he wanted to do was make his brother more self-conscious about his mental state.  
Nodding, Sam kept his gaze on the floor. "Benny still around?"  
"Are you asking if I took him out?"  
Nodding, Sam bit his lip.  
"No. I'm not going looking for him."  
"We should."  
"I can't believe you!" As upset as Dean already was, it wasn't hard for him to jump to anger. "After all this, you STILL want to hunt him?"  
"What? NO! I-" As if deciding something, Sam sighed again. "You should go find him. Get him out of sight."  
"What?"  
"Other hunters will look for him now. You know how to drop off the grid better than anyone. Go find him."  
"I should leave you and go find him." Dean couldn't believe Sam was even suggesting that.  
"He's your friend. Brother." His voice dropped to a whisper when a lump formed in his throat.  
As if Dean hadn't had the guilt piled on enough for one day. Of course, piling that on his flesh and blood brother had led him to drink a liquor store and swallow a pharmacy. So yeah, Dean kind of deserved it. It was time for Dean to fix it.  
"YOU are my brother, you stupid son of a bitch."  
"Not so much these days."  
"I'll be the first one to admit I've been a royal dick to you. But I didn't know. The one thing I do know is that you tend to do really stupid shit when I piss you off enough. And I did pissed you off." He'd really hurt Sam more than piss him off, but his brother didn't correct him. "I just wish you had told me what happened. Do you know how I felt thinking you'd just walked away and not even tried to find me?"  
"I should have handled a lot of things better."  
Sitting on the bed beside Sam, Dean bumped his shoulder against him. "I don't think handling shit well is part of the Winchester genetic makeup."  
"So where did my extraordinary ability to fuck things up come from?"  
"Got some of that gene, myself." Dean smiled at him. "Benny's on the run, and he's been doing this a lot longer than either of us. Right now we're going to order Chinese and soda. Gonna be a while before I turn you loose on anything stronger then ginger ale, you know that, right?"  
Returning Dean's smile, he nodded. Things weren't fixed, not by a long shot. But Dean realized that they'd both fought too hard to get here to let it all fall apart now.


End file.
